Sailors Safety Signs

Opunake Times, Volume LVV, Issue 3675, 19 October 1923, Page 3

Sailors Safety Signs

There are no policemen to regulate the traffic of sea. Indeed, there is no need to regulate it—by day. By night everything depends upon the sailor's common sense—and his vessel's lamps. Only in one case are the latter unreliable—during a fog, when it is. impossible to see half-a dozen yards ahead or astern. A steamer carries three navigation lights—one at her masthead and one on either side of her bridge. The masthead light is white, while the side lights are respectively red and green for left and right. There is one vital difference between a steamer's lights and those of a sailing vessel. The latter carries no masthead lamp. If she did all ships would be alike to sailors. Why this distinction in the case of sailing ships ? Sailing ships are slower, and need more room to navigate and 'do not keep a set course like a , steamer. I Ships driven by steam keep to the ' left of a sailing vessel where practicable. If they kept on an ordinary , course it is possible that they might ram the "windjammer" amidships ' owing to her unexpected habit of : tacking about in a breeze.